The Very Low Albedo of WASP-12b
A Planetary Atmosphere Acting Like a Star

An international team of researchers which I led analyzed new Hubble observations of WASP-12b
in hopes of detecting light reflected by the gas giant exoplanet. These observations show that
little-to-no light is reflected at optical wavelengths and tell us that the planet would look as
dark as fresh asphalt or charcoal, if we could take a look at it. This provides interesting insight
into the atmospheric conditions of the exceedingly hot dayside of the planet.
Image Credit: NASA/ESA/G. Bacon